Michael Horton has written an important piece entitled, "Joel Osteen and the Glory Story: A Case Study". His conclusion:
Osteen reflects the broader assumption among evangelicals that we are saved by making a decision to have a personal relationship with God. If one's greatest problem is loneliness, the good news is that Jesus is a reliable friend. If the big problem is anxiety, Jesus will calm us down. Jesus is the glue that holds our marriages and families together, gives us purpose for us to strive toward, wisdom for daily life. And there are half-truths in all of these pleas, but they never really bring hearers face to face with their real problem: that they stand naked and ashamed before a holy God and can only be acceptably clothed in his presence by being clothed, head to toe, in Christ's righteousness.
This gospel of "submission," "commitment," "decision," and "having a personal relationship with God" fails to realize, first of all, that everyone has a personal relationship with God already: either as a condemned criminal standing before a righteous judge or as a justified co-heir with Christ and adopted child of the Father. "How can I be right with God?" is no longer a question when my happiness rather than God's holiness is the main issue. My concern is that Joel Osteen is simply the latest in a long line of self-help evangelists who appeal to the native American obsession with pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Salvation is not a matter of divine rescue from the judgment that is coming on the world, but a matter of self-improvement in order to have your best life now.
Read the whole thing.
3 comments:
Ahhhh. He's not all that bad. I suppose people can turn into Piper to be reminded how crappy they are and then turn over to Joel to remember what to do after they've been reminded of how crappy they are.
My only problem with Joel is that he preaches the same sermon every week with a different story about his daddy thrown in there.
Nothing wrong with a little balance.
But seriously, when are the Christian Calvinist studdbuckets going to stop picking on Joel? I suppose when Joel stops doing Larry King interviews. But, heck! What are they going to have to write about when they have no Joel? I guess it'll be back to that old universalist Schuller at the Crystal Cathedral. And that's just boring.
"Christian Calvinist Studdbucket". I hope you were referring to me. I need to get that on a bumper sticker and put it on my truck.
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What does Calvinism have to do with criticism of Osteen? I don't know much about him, but my impression is that he'd be an uber-Calvinist.
Please advise.
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